Week 17 Summer CSA Package

This week’s cold, wet weather is quite a scare. Some of my farmers had light frosts on Sunday and Monday morning, so this week we are going to showcase as much produce as we can before it is gone.

One special ingredient this week is the brie (also referred to as camembert or bloomfield) by Mayfield Road Creamery. Our Wednesday customers and the Thursday west-route customers received this product early on week 15. We wanted to ship that item when it was fresh so it went out early. The second batch of brie is coming in this week and the remaining customers will receive it.

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We also have honey coming in this week. With the cool temperatures some of it may appear cloudy as it gets that way when raw honey gets cold. This is normal and the honey can be made more liquid again by gently heating the bottle in warm/hot water. Don’t boil it.

Summer Week 17:

Small CSA Share

1 piece Mayfield Road Creamery “Bloomfield,” a brie style cheese

1 lb raw honey

1 bunch swiss chard

1 bunch carrots with tops

1 bunch radishes

1 bag mixed greens, can be used for braising or salad greens

1 head speckled romaine lettuce (it will have brown spots…that is how it should be)

1/2 dz ears sweet corn

1 quarter peck gala apples

1 butternut squash (2 if they are small…but that’s doubtful based on what I’ve seen)

Large CSA Share Small contents above plus:

1 pint mixed color cherry tomatoes

2.5 lbs roma tomatoes

2 zucchini/squash

Approx 1 lb onions

1 head broccoli

A handful croatian sweet peppers

Vegetarian Share

No replacements

Add: 1 piece Mayfield Road Creamery gouda (Susan wants me to move it this week due to some issues on the packaging…so this will come out of a future budget)

Vegan Share

1 head cauliflower

3 # bag sweet potatoes

Week 18 Summer CSA

Week 18 Summer CSA Package

The weather seems to continue to cooperate and we have a nice selection of produce this week. The cool weather crops – like cabbage, broccoli, and kale – have been doing well and we’ll be able to showcase them this week.

Speaking of weather, we may get lucky and get one more blast of sweet corn in a few weeks, if it doesn’t get too cold. Kay Vaughn at Maize Valley Farm has one more field planted and we are just crossing our fingers for some sweet corn. As many of you may have noticed last week though, fall sweet corn isn’t as “clean” as summer corn. The ears are large and mature, but they are proned to worms. This brings up a very important decision for the farmer and I. Do we spray the corn repeatedly with a chemical pesticide to kill worms or let them be? I select let it be. You can pick the worms off; you can’t just pick the chemicals off the corn. That’s clean corn to me.

The meat this week is “city chicken.” For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, it is not chicken at all. It is pork cubes. These pork cubes can be used in many ways. Some ideas include skewers as well as breading them and pan frying or baking. I’m going to use mine that way in a stir fry dish with the cabbage, broccoli, and peppers, and serve it over a bed of sauted greens.

So here is this week’s full package:

Summer Week 18:

Small CSA Share

1 lb city chicken (cubed Berkshire pork)

1 head broccoli

1 bunch turnips

1 spaghetti squash

A handful Croation peppers

1 bunch beets

1 bunch mustard greens

1 head cabbage

1 bunch kale

Large CSA Share Small contents above plus:

1 head cauliflower

1 lb bulk Italian Sausage

Approx 1 lb onions

8 oz piece smoked cheddar cheese

Vegetarian Share

Cheese was provided last week, was factored into this week’s budget

Vegan Share (in place of city chicken)

1 head cauliflower

1 yellow watermelon

1 acorn squash

Week 19 Summer CSA

week 19 Summer

This week’s bag screams fall! We have cauliflower, sweet potatoes, and cornmeal. There are a few summer veggies still hanging on, including grape tomatoes and red peppers. Then the cool weather fresh greens are coming on strong – lettuce and baby bok choy.

So here is this week’s full package:

Summer Week 19:

Small CSA Share

1 dozen eggs

3# sweet potatoes

1 head cauliflower (some will be cheddar, purple, or green varieties)

1 head leaf lettuce

1 head baby bok choy

1 pint grape tomatoes

1 lb chorizo sausage links

2# cornmeal

2 ct red peppers

Large CSA Share Small contents above plus:

Red onion (s)

2 ct zucchini

Approx 1.5 lbs tomatoes

2 ct eggplant (or 1 if they are enormous)

1 lb pumpkin sage linguini

1 quarter peck cortland apples

Vegetarian Share

1 quarter peck cortland apples

1 lb pumpkin sage linguini

Vegan Share (in place of meat and eggs)

Vegetarian Substitutes, minus pasta

1.5 lb tomatoes

2 ct zucchini

2 ct eggplant

red onions

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I haven’t been making too many noteworthy dinners lately. I have however, been a soup making fool! I’ve already made two large batches of chicken dumpling soup. For each I used one of the whole chickens from our CSA and put it in the crock pot before work. Chopped up onions, mixed peppers, potatoes, added some bay leaves, salt, pepper, chicken bouillon and let that cook all day while at work. Coming home to the most amazing smelling chicken soup ever. Then I clean the chicken, transfer everything to a soup pot, add a bit more water and then made some dumplings with some Organic, Golden White Spelt Flour from Stutzman Farms. I’ve made soup twice in as many weeks now. Last time I made some cornbread muffins with it, this time the dumplings. I love it! The kids are a little tired of it though.

Spelt Flour

Love me some homemade chicken soup!

Sans dumplings — but an Octoberfest? Yes please 🙂

While still not as good as my Grandmother’s chicken soup.. I’m pretty damn proud of mine. And the Octoberfest goes with about everything. We used to go to my Grandmother’s all the time for soup and she would never let us drink anything with it. Always said, “If you drink a cold drink with hot soup, your teeth will crack and fall out!”… I’ve taken my chances and have been lucky so far 😉
That wasn’t so bad, now was it?? I have so much more catching up to do! Emily’s football team has gone to the playoffs, Jeremy’s team unfortunately got knocked out and running miles are a racking back up in preparation for my next ultras! Stay tuned!